


you and i will share the weight

by ryseling



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Implied/Referenced Abuse, M/M, Magical Bond, Post-Canon, Post-Kingdom Hearts III, Scars, VanVen Week (Kingdom Hearts), VanVen Week 2019, i speculate wildly on how magic light/darkness and keyblades affect biology, magical injuries, no beta we die like men, very very vague but y'know. Xehanort.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 13:15:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21969910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryseling/pseuds/ryseling
Summary: Vanitas looked strange without his armor. He looked a little strange even just without his helmet, really, if only because he could actuallybe seenwithout it. It was endlessly fascinating to actuallyseeexpressions play out over his features, where once that was only dark glass and cold metal. The absence of the armor, though, was much more startling.He lookedsmall.But that was not what caught Ventus’s attention.12/25 -Warmth| Bleed |Remembrance(plus vague connections to the day 3 prompt "mask")
Relationships: Vanitas/Ventus (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 178





	you and i will share the weight

**Author's Note:**

> I knew I wouldn't be able to keep up with prompts for the whole week but I had about half of this sitting in my drafts already, so I went in and tied it at least a _little_ bit to the day's prompt(s) and here we are. It's messy but I wanted to contribute to VanVen Week regardless~
> 
> Title is from "Talk to Me" by Cavetown.

Vanitas looked strange without his armor. He looked a little strange even just without his helmet, really, if only because he could actually _be seen_ without it. It was endlessly fascinating to actually _see_ expressions play out over his features, where once that was only dark glass and cold metal. The absence of the armor, though, was much more startling.

He looked _small_.

Once, Ventus would have considered that impossible. The Vanitas in his early memories was, while perhaps not as large a presence as Xehanort or Master Eraqus, a force to be reckoned with. Fierce, wild, and snarling, sharp-tongued and even sharper with his keyblade, Ventus never would have thought that _that_ Vanitas could _ever_ look small. Even after the war finally ended, Vanitas was a coiled spring, unwilling to show even the slightest sign of vulnerability to anyone. The first time he reappeared, he was still covered head to toe in his suit, hyper-aware and perpetually prepared for a battle that was no longer coming.

It had been a long, arduous process convincing him of that, of course. Xehanort had had effects on all of them, but arguably none more so than Vanitas. His still-golden eyes were proof enough of that. It had taken a long time, but slowly, piece by piece, Vanitas had unguarded himself. Now, he mostly wore simpler clothes, no longer constantly prepared to spring up and into a fight for his life. Without the armor, it was easier to see when the line of his shoulders relaxed, when the curves of his face smoothed over to something calmer, when his eyes would flicker and crinkle at the corners with the barest, most uncertain hint of a smile, when - 

When he was curled up on the corner of the couch in jeans and a hoodie, legs pulled up towards his chest with a book balanced on his knees. When it was easy to see how _small_ he looked.

But that was not what caught Ventus’s attention.

“Are those scars?” he asked, breaking the silence of the room.

Even though he had kept his voice fairly quiet and careful, Vanitas still grew tense for a moment at the unexpected noise. Then he lifted his head from where he’d had his nose buried in his book for the last half hour. He frowned at Ventus, confusion marring his features.

“What?” he questioned, brusque.

Ventus faltered a little, realizing belatedly that the question was probably a little insensitive - no one liked to speak about their scars, especially not now, when they all finally had the opportunity to lead normal lives. Vanitas _especially_ didn’t need (or deserve) to be reminded of the pains of his past, not when his had been marked by more pain than anything else.

But that was the _thing_ about it: for all that he’d endured, Vanitas didn’t _have_ scars. 

He hadn’t had a normal body after they split. He was _made of darkness_ , after all. Apparently, along with the rest of the mess that _that_ particular fact had caused, it also meant that his physical form bore no marks from any of the things he’d been through. It had been strange to learn, when Vanitas was taking his first shaky steps into the light and began to tentatively shed his armor; bits of unblemished, tan skin, bearing callouses on his hands from wielding his keyblade, but it was _Ventus_ who wore scars, not him. Even now, with the both of them more whole, more their own people, and closer to normal existence than perhaps they had been ever before, the wounds that Vanitas bore were ones that couldn’t be seen.

Which was why Ventus was quite confused and maybe more than a little concerned by the odd, jagged-looking lines he had caught a brief glimpse of over the edge of the low neckline of Vanitas’s hoodie. Enough that he swallowed, putting aside his worry over Vanitas’s feelings as well as his own misgivings, and repeated, “Are those scars?”

Vanitas blinked at him, the span of time it took him to process the question. Then, his fingers tightened around the edges of the book in his hands, and he clutched it a little closer to his chest. He narrowed his eyes a bit at Ventus, face pinching.

“I don’t have scars,” he grumbled. The way he was holding his book up near-protectively in front of himself said that he knew what Ventus was talking about, though.

Ventus nodded, refusing to relent. “Well, you’ve got- _something_ ,” he pointed out, gesturing a hand vaguely in Vanitas’s direction. “If they’re not a scars, what are they?”

Vanitas didn’t move for a while. He was eerily good at staying still; oftentimes, it would take other people a while to notice he was already in a room when they entered it. It had resulted in a lot of overdramatic reactions, in Vanitas’s first months amongst the lights (and still resulted in them now, sometimes, depending on who Vanitas involuntarily surprised). Ventus always seemed to be able to sense his other half, so he supposed he had an advantage over others in that regard - but he still couldn’t read Vanitas’s mind. He could usually read him at least a bit better than the others could, but right now, his expression was inscrutable. He remained still, clutching his book close, staring at Ventus wordlessly.

Just when Ventus was certain Vanitas was going to get up and leave without another word, or return to his reading and ignore the question altogether, the other boy sighed, long and low, dog-earing his page before setting the book aside.

“It’s... a mark,” he admitted at length. He was tense, and looked vaguely uncomfortable, but he’d put the book to the side and had actually _answered_ Ventus, and Ventus knew him well enough to take that as permission.

“A mark,” Ventus echoed, brows furrowing. _But not a scar_ , he reminded himself with some modicum of relief. “A mark from what?”

Vanitas wrinkled his nose, eyes sliding off to the side and hands clenching a bit into fists. “From when we split,” he answered tersely.

Oh.

_Oh_.

No wonder Vanitas had been reluctant to talk about it, then.

It was a sore topic for both of them, even if in different ways. Not the same kind of sore as it had once been - not the kind of sore that could be rubbed raw and erupt into another bloody battle between the two of them at any moment, or even the kind that could spark a bitter argument resulting in stony silence for days afterwards. Those things were blessedly rare, these days; it was much more common for them to spar or fall into harmless bickering over various things than it was to see any real conflict between them. But talking about the split was different from talking about nearly anything else. It had affected them both so similarly yet so differently, and it was connected to a lot of painful memories, both individual ones and the hazier, less distinct ones that belonged to a time when they hadn’t been their own people. It was a vulnerable, unpleasant, awfully _necessary_ topic.

Even more so now, apparently. “...Does it-” he tried, breaking off abruptly when his stomach lurched a bit. “It doesn’t... _hurt_ , does it?”

Vanitas glanced towards him, fingers fiddling with the hem of his hoodie. “...Not anymore,” he said quietly.

Ventus felt a sharp pang in his chest. That meant it _had_ hurt at some point, even if it didn’t, now. Vanitas had talked about a fair amount of what he’d suffered, since his reappearance in Ventus’s life, but it never got any easier to hear.

(Knowing his other half had suffered in _any_ way made something weak and small and furious thrash and writhe inside of him, rioting against every wound and ache that had ever befallen Vanitas, made Ventus feel nearly _sick_ knowing the other boy hadn’t deserved any of it.)

Ventus swallowed back the lump in his throat, eyes falling to Vanitas’s collarbone again, right where folds of dark fabric bunched up near his neck. If he looked closely, he thought he could still see the edges of the same dark lines poking up on the skin just above the hoodie that he’d seen before.

“Can I see?” he asked quietly, curling his fingers unsurely against his knees.

Vanitas jolted, eyes narrowing and brow furrowing. He stared at Ventus warily, and perhaps he would look annoyed, or at least guarded, if not for the erratic, jumpy way he plucked at the hems of his sleeves. His wordless uncertainty when faced with anything other than pity, scorn, or malice was its own sort of heartbreaking, Ventus thought. As though Vanitas could never quite trust that someone would ask what he’d been through and actually _listen_. As though he didn’t know that anyone could care _at all_ without the intent to hurt coming with it.

Vanitas remained silent for a few minutes, scrutinizing the other, before he eventually blew out a gusty sigh, looking away. “Fine,” he muttered lowly, uncurling from the corner of the couch.

Ventus carefully stayed exactly where he was, hands practically glued to his knees, as Vanitas sat up fully. The blonde remained quiet, not entirely sure what to expect, as his other half seemed to hesitate for another few seconds. Then, letting out a low huff and setting his jaw with grim determination, he took hold of the hem of his hoodie and sharply pulled the garment up over his head.

Ventus momentarily flailed, caught off guard. “What are you-”

Then he saw the mark.

It was entirely impossible to miss. The spindly dark lines that Ventus had seen over Vanitas’s collar were only the bare edges of the mark; the lines grew thicker and darker moving down, twisting together along Vanitas’s sternum. Similar lines traced up from his abdominals, drawing another path up to the center of his chest. There, all the lines spiraled and twined together into something like a knot, blackened skin almost seeming to form a pit right over where his physical heart would be.

“... _Oh_ ,” Ventus breathed out, something deep in his own chest aching.

Vanitas glared at him, though it was undercut by the way he still had his hands curled tightly in the bundled-up hoodie resting in his lap. “ _That’s_ all you have to say?” he scoffed incredulously.

Ventus shook his head, but no words followed up the motion to disprove Vanitas’s accusation. 

The mark didn’t look _painful_ , exactly, but its jagged spirals weren’t natural by any stretch of the imagination. They looked the way that Unversed sounded when they attacked, inexplicable by any means that didn’t involve the Light and Darkness that had marked both their paths. Something twisted in his stomach as he stared at the mark, the familiar rake of anguish, frustration, and sympathy that always chased Vanitas’s hurts, but something was different, this time - something that poked and prodded at his mind for memories, an uncertain sensation of deja vu.

“I think... I think I have a mark like that, too,” Ventus said slowly, eyes meticulously studying the edges of the mark; sifting through the haze hanging over mind that blanketed the time directly after the split, before Sora’s intervention, when he hadn’t yet been whole.

Vanitas’ eyes narrowed, glaring at the blonde dubiously. “You _think_?” he echoed, half disbelieving and half disdainful. He gestured with one hand to the mark on his chest, lip curling. “I think it’d be pretty _obvious_ if you did.”

Ventus huffed slightly. “Well, mine doesn’t look like _that_ ,” he said, a touch defensively. “It’s... I think mine _is_ a scar.”

Vanitas blinked, brows furrowing. He looked taken aback, though it would be easily dismissed by anyone else as impatience, especially with the way he leaned towards Ventus with a challenging slant to his eyes. “Show me,” he requested, jaw set in a hard line.

Ventus didn’t even think about denying him. It was only fair, after all.

He shifted backwards, drawing his own shirt up over his head and looking down to touch his fingers to his chest, where the skin was just slightly raised over his heart. The scar was more tactile than visual, its color almost identical to the rest of his skin tone, but faint mottling of darker and paler flesh where it seemed some sort of wound had healed unevenly just barely distinguished it. It was difficult to tell if it extended out to the sides in the same tendrils that Vanitas’s mark had, but the placement was the same, and Ventus thought that he could almost _feel_ the edges of the scar, in the same way he felt his keyblade in his hand whenever he held it, a strange, familiar combination of physical weight and intangible instinct.

Vanitas seemed to be able to sense the scar in the same way. His eyes were glued to it, golden irises turning murkier as his face shifted to some strange, unfamiliar expression at the sight. Ventus couldn’t tell whether the other’s reaction was a good one or a bad one, unable to parse the heavy, silent contemplation that hung over Vanitas like a shroud. The blond shifted in place under the other boy’s scrutiny, but he didn’t try to hide. Vanitas had chosen to be vulnerable with him when he could have just as easily walked away or told Ven to fuck off when he asked his question in the first place, and Ventus knew that he had nothing to fear from being vulnerable in return. Not anymore. So he sat still, folding his hands in his lap, and waited quietly for his other half to speak.

Eventually, Vanitas did.

“Does it hurt?” he asked quietly, finally raising his gaze from Ventus’s scar to meet blue eyes.

The light felt like the air had been sucked out of his lungs, like someone had reached into his chest - right through the scar over his heart - and _squeezed_.

After everything, Vanitas asked if _he_ was hurt. 

After everything the other boy had been through, after all the bad blood between them, after every fight and every painful clash and every moment they had been on opposite sides - after all of that, Vanitas had asked if Ventus was hurt.

Something warm bloomed inside of him, and he was certain he had a goofy grin on his face, based on the way Vanitas made a face at him. Still, the other didn’t take back his words, and it only made Ventus smile wider.

“Not anymore,” he answered softly, and watched as Vanitas stared at him, his expression shifting as some sort of understanding passed over his face.

And it was _true_. It didn’t hurt. What little he could remember clearly from before Sora's heart healed his, he could recall the ache of it - the raw, inflamed hollowness, the _wrongness_ of it - but those days were long past. The twinges he always seemed to feel when the past - and especially what his other half had suffered over the years - were absent, now, too. Instead, he was warm to his bones, suffused with relief and happiness and something so terribly _tender_ that he couldn’t even _begin_ to give it a name.

And maybe these feelings wouldn’t be there forever - maybe the two of them wouldn’t be able to be open to each other like this again tomorrow, or even in just another hour - but for now, watching the darkened curls of the edges at Vanitas’s mark fade just a little bit fainter into his skin, it was more than enough.


End file.
